The Tortured Transylvanian [DISCONTINUED]

Dorothy

*Narrator, or the orphans*

Her name's Odette, pretty huh? Just like her, she's 16 years old but so mature she outta be 18. She used to be the sweetest orphan around; obediant, kind, the whole package.

Us kids liked that about her, adults took advantage of it.

It all started the first time she came back, her eyes weren't sparkling, her cheeks weren't rosy, she wasn't smiling or laughing like her usual self. Casually, we thought she was just stunned she had been sent back. We thought it wouldn't happen again.

But we were wrong.

Over and over she was sent to different families, and over and over she was sent back. Each time she returned, she looked worse. Her body began displaying brusies, more and more of them each time she came back. Her eyes lost their friendly sparkle, making them look as lifeless as a doll. And one time, she came back limping and we looked through her clothes when she went to shower and found blood staining her underwear. She had been raped.

For a time, she often told us stories about the places she had been. Horror stories, the type no one had the dency to repeat, and they were all true.

Then one day, she stopped. Not just telling the stories, talking in general. One day she came back from another family with no voice, she never spoke, never smiled, she was empty, a shell with nothing but cold air swirling around.

We began calling her a new name after that, not to tease her, but to illustrate her sorrow to future families. No one counted on the name to stick but it did and everyone called her by it. And as days became months, she never left the orphan home again and her new name slowly became her, her essence, her soul.

And that name...was Dorothy.